REMEMBER THE PONCE MASSACRE - March 21, 1937 By Carlito Rovira Ever since the beginning of the U.S. colonization of Puerto Rico, which began with naval bombardments and a military invasion on July 25, 1898, officials in Washington have maintained a hostile policy of violence aimed at destroying those who advocate political independence for Puerto Rico. One of these known atrocities against the independence movement was the Ponce Massacre. On the morning of Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, hundreds of people, mostly women and youth, had gathered at the town plaza in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico in defiance of the wishes of the U.S. colonial government. Women dressed in all white assembled as Nurses of the Republic. The youth organization of the Nationalist Party, the Cadets of the Republic, dressed in black shirts and white pants. Church congregations and others also formed their contingents. The planned demonstration was to demand the release of the imprisoned Nationalist leader Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos. The Nationalist Party had broad support for their belief in the right of the Puerto Rican masses to their own state and the right to fight for it by whatever means. The Nationalist youth stood defiantly in military formation, three abreast. Among them was a color guard that unveiled the outlawed symbols - the Nationalist Party Flag and the Puerto Rican flag. In dignified manner and with clenched fists in the air, the crowd began singing La Borinqueña -- the revolutionary national anthem of the Puerto Rican nation. The colonial police had completely sealed off the area where the nationalist protesters were gathering. With grenades, tear-gas bombs, carbine rifles and machine guns, under the directions of the U.S. installed colonial government, the police prepared to attack. Once the crowd began to march, and with full knowledge that the mostly young participants were unarmed, the colonial police viciously opened fire (as shown in the photograph below). The barrage lasted about 5 minutes. When the shooting ended, 19 people had been killed and 120 laid wounded. The Ponce Massacre is an episode in Puerto Rican history that provides indisputable proof of the criminal nature of the U.S. presence in Puerto Rico. Despite the horrific character of this and other similar events, the yearnings for independence have never seized. And because the revolutionary nationalist aspirations continue to exist in Boricua traditions, the memory of the Ponce Massacre shall serve to strengthen the resolve of those who struggle to bring about a free and sovereign Puerto Rican republic. We can feel certain that history assures an eventual victorious struggle to rid U.S. colonialism and avenge the Ponce Massacre. QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE!
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 08:34:41 +0000
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